Lucy Dater – RIP

This is going to be painful, but I need some catharsis here. I’ve got some friends here, and those are who you look to for support. So I hope you’ll allow me this.
Our dog, Lucy, was put to sleep tonight. She was seven.
Everything was going pretty good today, really. Driving home after some useful time spent at the Post building downtown, I pulled into the garage, walked in and expected the usual excited tail-wagging and prancing about by “Luce” as she was more commonly known. Because she frequently had “accidents” around the house, even at her age, she frequently is shut in the kitchen when we’re out – with a doggy door to the outside and food and water dish inside.

Immediately, I knew something was wrong by the time I got to one of the gates that kept her in the kitchen. There was no “Daddy’s home” frenzy, no frothing for the latch to be undone so she could run free and jump up and paw me, like she always did.

Instead, she was just standing there by the side of the gate, very quiet. I took another step forward and saw the blood – lots of it – spread all over the kitchen floor. “Lucy!” I said. “What’s wrong girl?” Nothing, just standing there. Then she took a few very slow steps out to the carpeted area of the living room, and I could see that she was cut — and bad. A deep, dark red gash by her lower abdomen. More dried blood on the back. Maybe a cut around the ears.

I immediately called my wife. She probably knew where I should take her. I had no clue. Take her to the vet on 124th and Huron she said. I very gently picked up Lucy and applied a towel to her injured areas, which were losing blood at a good clip.

Slowly get back to the car with her in tow, gently place her in the backseat, get the car started and floor it to the vet. This is the part that’s going to last with me a while: Lucy, there in the backseat, blood coming out of her, wounded from an encounter with some kind of animal that must have found its way into our enclosed back yard. I thought I smelled skunk smell around the area and on Lucy, but now I’m not so sure.

Lucy, there in the backseat, just leaning her chin on her paws, quiet. So very dignified in a way. No fussing, screaming, no complaining. Just her, quietly enduring what had to have been some very bad pain. Just patiently, it seemed, waiting for me to get her to where there might be some help. Waiting patiently as I tailgated everybody in front of me, roared past them when I had the chance and even giving a couple nasty looks of “What, you didn’t know I got a dying dog back here!” The thing that breaks my heart the most: Lucy picking her face off her paws, for a look at me. The look on her face seemed to say, “What did I do? Why did that thing do that to me back there? I just wanted to be friends.”
That sight is going to kill me. She was just such a small creature, who never wanted to hurt a fly, who always leapt with joy at any kind of company. You don’t picture your dog going out like that. You picture a really old age, then maybe a tough drive to the vet someday, but a nice peaceful goodbye. Basically, my dog was mortally wounded from an attack, and standing right in front of me, shivering a little in shock, blood coming out of her. This is not how you picture your dog going out.

The doctors said it was bad. A deep puncture wound in the abdomen. We could maybe do invasive surgery, they said, maybe, with some luck, she’d pull through but it would be a long fight. Oh, and it’ll cost about $3 grand, to get started, then probably a long, trying rehab.

Thanks for the Hobbsesyen choice, guys. That’s always what scared, grieving people want to have to deal with right away – “Is this dog important enough to you to give us 3 grand so that maybe – if all goes really lucky after that – she might be OK?” But the vet people were nice enough, though. They did what they could.

My wife and I came to the decision that Lucy had suffered enough. Dogs aren’t meant to go through four hours on the operating table. They’re not supposed to come back home and probably live like an invalid. They are supposed to live their short lives just like Lucy had done for seven years – always, always, always, always, always – happy and grateful to see us. And us happy and grateful to see her.

That dog actually drove me crazy over the years. She barked way too much. She would always jump off the bed, then beg to get picked back up a minute later. Then she’d jump off again, then beg again. Repeat that about 10 times on many nights and that’s what you had.

I could be ill-tempered with Lucy, many times. The barking – got a shock collar to take care of that. The accidents all over the house – locked her up in the kitchen at night for that. Wherever I went, for some reason, she always had to follow. That could drive a man crazy too. Even when I told her to get away with a nasty temperament sometimes, she never took it personal. She was always right back there, just wanting to be with me and express her affection, which could be a little two-legged backstand/walk or a lick of the hand. Always. She didn’t do that with my wife as much, but everywhere I went, she had to be too. She was a daddy’s girl.

Which is why I am so ripped up with guilt right now. Maybe if I’d come home a little earlier, Lucy is inside with me, not outside checking out some intruder trying to get into our garbage can? Maybe if I come home earlier, I scare off whatever piece of vermin is on the way, and my dog never has to go near it.

If I had, Lucy would be still with us right now, curled in between us on the bed, loving every second of feeling safe and happy and protected. I can’t bear the thought of her wandering around the kitchen, dripping blood, with no one to help her.

I wasn’t there to protect you today, little girl. And for that I am eternally sorry. I just pray that your pain was brief. And if it wasn’t, you sure put up one hell of a dignified fight. You never let ’em know it hurt.
As much I might not have realized it at times, Lucy, I do now.